At This Moment

“I care a lot about you,” he said. “And I have a deep affection for you.”

Later, he said, “I like what we have. And maybe it will develop into something stronger. Or maybe it won’t.”

He also said, “It seems that we have different long-term goals.”

I hate this, even though it’s probably true.

Maybe there’s a way to reconcile that, or maybe there isn’t. But even if we had exactly the same long-term goals, I’d still be scared. Skeared.

Because even if he’d said, “I love you madly and want to take care of you for the rest of your life,” I wouldn’t really have been happy.

I just don’t like not knowing what’s going to happen next. Especially with this stuff. The more of them I have, the more the painful ends of relationships haunt me. And it’s trust, trust. It’s stepping out onto ice and hoping it doesn’t break. What happens when I stop noticing it’s ice I’m walking on?